I'm a dreamer, writer and actor obsessed with classic television, lace, baking and quoting Ace Ventura (one of these things is not like the other). I like to believe that my life is just like a Disney movie with an Alan Menken soundtrack except the stepmom's not so evil. When I married my husband, David, in October of 2012, I fell madly, deeply in love with my two stepchildren, Chloe and Trey. It's incredibly hard to balance being a stepmom every other weekend with the rest of my life, but it is 100% worth it. You can find more stories about my family at my personal blog, fairytangles!

I’ve always been a fairly sensitive person. I’ve been known to get teary-eyed during a particularly touching movie scene (When Forrest Gump breaks out of his leg braces anyone?) and cry over things like when my husband proposed to me. But pregnancy has added an entire extra level of emotional distress.

You guys. I sobbed my way through an entire episode of “American Idol”. I burst into tears during a moment on “Modern Family”, but my crowning “sadness achievement” was when I straight up had a meltdown over an episode of “The Brady Bunch”.

I need help.

They say that all of the extra hormones and emotional outbursts are normal, I know, but it doesn’t make them any easier to handle. In fact, my husband has had the hardest time with this pregnancy symptom. The poor guy has no idea what the hell I’m crying about and, bless him, he does everything he can to help. But I can’t count the number of times he’s simply rolled over and said, “Well… okay. Wake me up if you need me, I guess.”

Oh sweet husband.

The best way to work through these emotions, I’m learning, is just to let them happen. Don’t try and keep things bottled in, don’t try to ignore them, don’t try to will them away. Just cry. Let those emotions take over because as fast as they happened? That’s how fast they seem to go away. I can sob for a good four minutes, but then I’m fine. Everything is bright and rosy again.

Especially my runny nose.

I’ve also had to learn that whatever I’m crying over is not really the “source”. My husband may have said something he thought was funny and sent me into an emotional tailspin, but his “joke” wasn’t the issue. In fact, I think it’s taken him a while to learn this, too. He’s stopped getting quite so defensive over the things he says, and has chalked it up to his normally sweet-tempered, somewhat-emotionally-balanced wife having a case of the WACKADOO.

(This has become a permanent addition to our family’s dictionary, by the way.)

God, postpartum recovery is going to be FUN, isn’t it?

If you dealt with extreme pregnancy emotions, how did you navigate the outbursts? Did you allow them to happen and deal with the aftermath? How did your husband handle it?